The Neo-Assyrian Context of First Isaiah

2020 ◽  
pp. 143-158
Author(s):  
C. L. Crouch ◽  
Christopher B. Hays
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
World History ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Economic Resources ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Military Power ◽  
Theological Interpretation ◽  
The Will ◽  
Divine Wrath

The Neo-Assyrian Empire expanded rapidly across the ancient Near East between the ninth and seventh centuries bce and constituted the domineering historical and political backdrop to the prophetic activities of Isaiah ben Amoz. Assyria’s military power, its extraction of vassal states’ economic resources, and its theological interpretation of these activities as the will of the Assyrian gods deeply impacted the theology of the eighth-century prophet, as well as the subsequent bearers of his traditions. The Assyrian Empire serves numerous functions in this material, ranging from Judah’s savior from the Syro-Ephraimite coalition to the epitome of terror and the earthly manifestation of Yhwh’s divine wrath. In defiance of Assyrian claims to the contrary, however, Isaiah declares that Yhwh alone is the king and ruler of world history.

Reconstructing the Temple

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew R. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Recent History ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Temple

This book examines temple renovation as a distinct topos within royal literature of the ancient Near East. Unlike newly founded temples, which were celebrated for their novelty, temple renovations were oriented toward the past. Kings took the opportunity to rehearse the history of the temple, selectively evoking certain past traditions and omitting others. In this way, temple renovations are a kind of historiography. The particularities of each case notwithstanding, this book demonstrates a pattern in the rhetoric of temple renovation texts; namely, kings used temple renovation to correct, or at least distance themselves from, some turmoil of recent history and to associate their reigns with an earlier and more illustrious past. The main evidence for this royal rhetoric comes from royal literature of the seventh and sixth centuries BCE. This evidence in turn becomes the basis for reading the story of Jeroboam I’s placement of calves at Dan and Bethel (1 Kgs 12:25–33) as an eighth-century BCE account of temple renovation with a similar rhetoric. Concluding with further examples in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, this book shows that the rhetoric of temple renovation was not just a distinct topos, but also a long-standing one in the ancient Near East.

“Four Kingdoms” in the Dead Sea Scrolls?

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-233
Author(s):  
Nadav Sharon
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
World History ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
New Jerusalem ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Book Of Daniel

Abstract The “Four Empires” scheme appears in literature from around the ancient Near East, as well as in the biblical book of Daniel. Daniel’s scheme was adopted in subsequent Jewish literature as a basic division of world history. In addition, the book of Daniel appears to have had a prominent place in the Qumran library. Scholars have identified, or suggested, the existence of the “Four Empires” scheme in two texts found among the Qumran scrolls, the “New Jerusalem” text (4Q554), and, especially, in the so-called “Four Kingdoms”(!) text (4Q552–553). This paper will examine these texts, will argue that the “four empires” scheme is not attested in the Qumran scrolls (apart from Daniel), and will suggest alternative understandings of those two texts.

Of Ancient Codes

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Van De Mieroop
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
World History ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Ancient Mesopotamia ◽  
The Law

This chapter focuses on the genre of law codes in ancient Mesopotamia. Hammurabi authored—or more likely commissioned—one of the earliest surviving law codes in world history. Hammurabi’s code is part of a small corpus of ancient Near East writings about law that was founded on the principles contained in lexical and omen lists. The law codes of the ancient Near East show how aspects of Babylonian epistemology could be imitated by others even if they did not employ the Babylonian writing system that lay at its core. The chapter first considers the historical context of the law codes before discussing the format of these laws. The composition of law codes flourished in Babylonia in the late third and early second millennia, when four kings commissioned them: Ur-Namma and Lipit-Eshtar in the Sumerian language, Dadusha and Hammurabi in Akkadian.

Prologue to Genesis (1, 1-11, 26): Prophetic Revelation, History, Myth or Metahistory?

2020 ◽  
pp. 17-46
Author(s):  
Михаил Анатольевич Скобелев
Keyword(s):  
Mystical Experience ◽  
Near East ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
Traditional View ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Symbolic Form ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
The World ◽  
Genesis 1 ◽  
Book Of Genesis

В статье рассматриваются богословие, композиция и литературная форма сюжетов, входящих в состав Пролога книги Бытия (1, 1-11, 26). Во второй половине XIX - начале XX вв. в результате появления Документальной гипотезы и сопоставления Священного Писания с литературными памятниками Древнего Ближнего Востока большая часть сюжетов, составляющих Пролог, была объявлена мифами и древнееврейским фольклором (Ю. Велльгаузен, Г. Гунекель, Дж. Фрезер). Кроме выявленных ближневосточных параллелей, новому отношению к повествованиям Пролога книги Бытия способствовали: отсутствие в нём ясно выраженной исторической задачи и символичность изложения. Защищая традиционный взгляд на Пролог как на священную историю и пророческое откровение, епископ Кассиан (Безобразов) предложил рассматривать все библейские сюжеты, содержащие теофанию, как метаисторию. Протоиерей Сергий Булгаков, А. Ф. Лосев, Б. П. Вышеславцев, занимавшиеся феноменом мифотворчества, назвали библейское повествование о начале мироздания мифом, но в ином смысле, чем это делали Г. Гункель и Дж. Фрезер. Они обосновали новый положительный взгляд, согласно которому миф не есть выдумка или фантазия, а реальность, основанная на мистическом опыте. В статье анализируется каждый из перечисленных терминов: «история», «миф», «метаистория» применительно к Прологу, а также рассматривается возможность их согласования с традиционным церковным взглядом на эту часть книги Бытия. The article deals with the theology, composition and literary form of the narrations which constitute the prologue part of the book of Genesis (1, 1-11, 26). During the second half of the 19th and at the turn of the 20th cent., following the emergence of the Documentary hypothesis as well as the comparison of the Holy Scripture with the newly-discovered literary monuments of Ancient Near East, the greater part of the narrations that constitute the Prologue were labeled myths and ancient Hebrew folklore (J. Wellhausen, H. Gunkel, J. Frazer). In addition to the then detected Near Eastern parallels, this new attitude towards the narrations of the Prologue was fostered by its lack of a clearly expressed historical dedication and the symbolic form of their exposition. Defending the traditional view of the Prologue as sacred history and prophetic revelation, bishop Kassian (Bezobrazov) proposed to consider all the biblical narrations that contain theophanies as metahistorical. Archpriest Sergey Bulgakov, A. F. Losev and B. P. Vysheslavtsev, who analyzed the phenomenon of myth-making, called the Biblical narration of the origins of the world a myth, but in a sense different from that proposed by Gunkel and Frazer. They have founded a new and positive conception according to which a myth is not fiction but rather a kind of reality based upon mystical experience. The author of the article analyzes each of the terms enumerated - «history», «myth», «metahistory» - in their use relating them to the Prologue; he also examines the possibility of their harmonizing with the traditional ecclesiastical view of this part of the book of Genesis.

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